What if White Hat SEO does not get results?

[EmarketedTeam]

If company A is paying 5k a month and some of that budget is buying links or content that might be in the gray area but is ranking higher than company B that's following the "rules" and paying the same but not showing up at all, what's company B suppose to do?

[EGOL]

It's not too late for you to start your next career, Robert.

You know how new ventures can be fun.

Or, you can simply do stand-up at the local pub for tips.

[RobertFisher]

Damn,

I shoulda been a comedian (is that the right spellin')

[EGOL]

lol

Loved the "hanky".    I'll laugh about it all the way to the office.

Thank you, Robert.   nominated for humor of the month award

[firstconversion]

If you are thinking about what type of links you can buy with 5k a month, then you are dying and don't know it yet

If you are thinking of being competitive in terms of white/black hat, I am afraid you are really looking at it the wrong way. You need to figure out what is going to make you a better brand than your competitor and win in areas that spammers wont fight in, like brand, customer service and UX

S

[RobertFisher]

I wish I had seen this earlier, quite the interesting question... So company A is "buying links or content that might be in the gray area and outranks CoB for some keywords. Company B is the good guy. 
First, and I think foremost, if I am associated with company "B" (someone hand me a hankie at the nobility of being a true martyr), I am going to take two steps back and ask this question: "How do we know that company A is doing anything gray and how do we know what they are doing is the reason for their ranking better than we are?"

Why, because believing you are the more noble, smarter, best dressed, etc. is a common refrain of those who are not looking close enough at themselves. So, no, I am not advocating black hat SEO with the hanky comment  (because IMO, it is not the brightest SEO - yes those doing it are free to throw the darts now cause frankly I don't care). I made the hanky comment to get your attention as I would my staff when we start to say how good we are. Forget it as it is irrelevant when it comes to the battle.

Our clients are not paying us to be Pollyanna. Yes, there are those who do anything for a ranking and that does not matter. What do I want? I want to out think them. I want to out create them. I want to out motivate my team. I want to argue for quality content, good UI/UX, metrics that make sense over metrics that appear to make sense. I want to stomp my client's competition into an unmitigated hole and own them. Yes, I will do it fair and square as I don't have time to deal with dumb penalties. But, I am not going to throw out a rotator cuff patting myself on the back over the color of a friggin hat. I am going to win because I am smarter, my team is the best, and if all else fails, I will simply outwork them and write the content myself because I know I am that good.

Sorry, if that turned into a rant, but the trap of whose hat was the whitest today is a big one for a pro seo.

Best to all, God I love this forum,

Robert

[JadedTLC]

I watched a competitor get absolutely annihilated by Penguin. I've found that black hat SEO will always have a bad ending. It may take them a few months, but aggressive Black Hat always gets found. And I have never heard of White Hat SEO not working. I can only say perhaps you need some help understanding what some White Hat tactics are, especially regarding technical SEO. (Are you talking Technical SEO, External SEO or Front End SEO?) Each has different tactics for success.

[EGOL]

but not showing up at all

If this is true, and the current SEO has been on the job for a few months, then it is time to evaluate their performance.  I am not saying that they are screwing up, just saying that at least a trickle of traffic could be starting to flow.

White hat is slow to produce - especially from a standing start.

[danatanseo]

I have seen this scenario. In fact, on some level, it's playing out for me very personally. That being said, I haven't ever had white hat SEO produce zero results. It has always produced some positive results. Sometimes the results are awesome. Sometimes they are "ok." I have been (and currently am) in a situation where, at least for right now, it appears that a competitor using black hat SEO (I know because I used to work for them), is out-ranking us (we are using strictly white hat) for several key terms.

Frustrating? Yes, of course...and hard to explain to a CEO.

What I will say is this, focus on how the business is doing instead of obsessing over keyword rankings. Why? Because of this: Just because your competitor is outranking you using black hat techniques does not mean their business as a whole is succeeding.

You see, what I also know about this competitor is that they are maybe one bad sales month away from going belly up. All those black hat techniques aren't going to do diddly if they go under....and us? We'll still be here. We'll still be here because we focus on sound, solid business strategies.

The other thing you need to consider is how you are defining "results." For us, results are a combination of higher traffic, better conversation rates, higher AOV, and ultimately higher profit. Do you know that your compay "A" that's using black hat is actually beating you out on the bottom line of revenue? Unless you know for sure, don't assume that they are.

If I were company B, I'd put my blinders on, continue with white hat and make darn sure my business model and marketing plans were rock solid. These are the things that make it possible for businesses to survive long-term. Company A is going to have a lot of cleaning up and 'splaynin to do when they get de-indexed out of Google. If they've hung their hat on that, they won't be around long and Company B will still be standing.

That's my two cents!

Dana

[jws8118]

I would focus on producing high quality content and getting it syndicated on high authority relevant websites.  This strategy is safer in the long run and it is also very difficult to duplicate without putting in all the time and effort.